


The Death and Life of Snuffles

by HeroSavesPeople



Category: The Flash (TV 2014), westallen
Genre: Comedy, F/M, Fluff, Humor, Love, Romance, WA AU, Westallen AU, corny af
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-06-06 10:14:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15192605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeroSavesPeople/pseuds/HeroSavesPeople
Summary: When Barry runs over Iris's cat, he's faced with the guilt of being a cat murderer.To tell or not to tell...





	The Death and Life of Snuffles

**Author's Note:**

> So this is corny af but came about as I was trying to take a break from writing so much angst, even though that's more of my forte. I hope this is still enjoyable :P

There's a slight bump as Barry is lifted from his seat for a brief moment before he hits the break.  He looks around in confusion before his eyes land on something in his rearview mirror.

His eyes widen in horror as he feels his heart plummet in his chest.  "Oh no," he whispers. "Oh no. No, no, no, no, no…"

He drives forward and shifts the gear into park before scrambling out of his car, body low as his feet struggle to coordinate.   He slides down on his knees, the asphalt rough even through the thick denim, but he pays no mind as his eyes glances over to his back tire. He cringes and then looks down at the ground.

"Oh god, _no_ ," he wails.  He clutches either side of his head, his fingers gripping his hair as he looks at the ground in horror.

There lay Snuffles, the tabby car that had hated him since the moment he first walked into Iris's apartment four months ago.  Iris's beloved companion who was a gift from her late Grandma Ester before Barry came along.

Barry had just left Iris's apartment getting ready to meet up with Cisco at their place while Iris promised to stop by after finishing up an article.  She had idly wondered where Snuffles had gone but they both assumed she was out hunting for the day's catch. But as it turned out, she was the unintentional prey that day.

What was he going to do?  How was Barry going to tell his girlfriend of just four months that he had killed her cat?

"Barry?"

Barry stiffens, his eyes widening in horror.  Oh god no, please don't let Iris have seen what happened.  She calls out to him again and he realizes that her voice was coming from above instead of beside him.

He looks up and sees Iris leaning against her balcony and looking down at him.  His heart picks up as his eyes flit between her and Snuffles. Mercifully though, her apartment was situated just far enough that Snuffles was out of sight.

"Hey, Iris."

"Is everything ok?   I thought I heard something."  She furrows her brows and angles her head to look around the bumper.  "What are you doing back there?"

Barry scrambles to his feet, tripping over his own foot and landing hard against his trunk.  He grunts at the pain that shoots up his elbow but makes sure to shield Snuffles behind him.

"Oh!  Nothing, honey, um…I'm just checking out my tire.  I thought I had a flat." He cringes at the endearment, sounding foreign in his tongue.  Barry hadn't really ever used an endearment for Iris—certainly not honey—considering her name an endearment in of itself.  He wonders if she picked up on that.

By the way she cocks her head to the side and looks at him strangely, she definitely picked up on it.  In the midst of his chaotic worrying thoughts he wonders if she likes it.

"Do you need some help?"

"No!" he shouts, louder than he intended before schooling himself.  "I mean, um, I don’t want to disturb you. You've got your article to finish up and I want be with you for as long as possible so the quicker you finish up, the quicker you can come over to Cisco's.  I'm great, it's great, tire's great."

He smiles widely at her as he pops open his trunk.  He grabs the bag of clothes he and Iris planned to give to Goodwill and quickly empties out the bag as Iris remains at the balcony.

"Are you sure?  I can help you if you need."

"No, no," he squeaks.  "I've got it."

He looks down at Snuffle's body and feels his nose burn.  While he wasn't fond of the cat, he never wanted to see it dead.  He scrunches up his face and looks away as he bends down and wraps her up in the bag.

He carefully places her in his trunk before slamming the trunk shut.  He lets out an embarrassing shriek and jumps against the trunk when he sees Iris standing there with a frown.

"Iris," he says breathlessly.  "Hi, hi. Why did you come down here?"

"Just thought I could help you with the tire."  She bends down toward the tire when he suddenly pulls here into his arms.

"Oh!" Iris gasps as he presses her to his body.

"I just checked it, I was wrong, no flat," he says by way of explanation.  He looks at her bewildered expression before leaning down and kissing her. There isn't a world that exists where Barry Allen needed an excuse to kiss Iris West.  Any given opportunity, he'd take. But there was a smidge of guilt that this kiss was a cover-up to his crime.

"I'm going to miss you today," he mumbles against her lips.  That was certainly the truth.

They had initially planned to head over to Cisco's early that morning to set up for Caitlin's birthday party, but Iris's capricious editor had asked her to submit another last-minute article.

"Aw babe, I'll miss you too," she giggles.  She presses a kiss to his lips and then another.  "Ok scram before you distract me."

She pulls out of his arms and trots back up the walkway, waving.  He sighs and waits until she makes it inside before glancing down at his closed trunk.

"I'm so screwed," he whispers.

*******

"Wait, hold up," Cisco says, holding up his hands, a limp balloon dangling from his fingertips.  "You're telling me that there's a…dead cat in your trunk. And not just any cat, but you're girlfriend's best friend."

Barry had sped away from the scene of the crime as fast as he could, hoping the further away he was, the less his heart would be fighting to jump out of his chest.  But, that was all for naught because as he burst into his and Cisco's apartment rambling like a maniac, Barry was once again struck by how he had screwed up. And apparently so was Cisco.

What made it worse was that even Cisco knew how much Iris loved her cat, the weight of it jarring even him.

"Yes," Barry wails pathetically, pacing Cisco's living room.  There were decorations scattered across the apartment and a pile of balloons Cisco had apparently been blowing up.  Barry kicks a few of them out of his way in frustration.

"Hey, hey!  Don't take it out on my balloons, man."

"Sorry."

"So, what are you going to do?"

Barry whips up to look at Cisco with wide eyes.  "That's why I came here! I thought you could help me."

"Dude, _you_ were supposed to help _me._ Not the other way around and definitely not in trying to cover up a crime."  Cisco pulls his lips into a tight frown, shaking his head. "You are screwed."

Barry groans and rubs his temples with his hands.  "I know. Cisco, man, you gotta help me out. What do I do?  I can't tell Iris I killed Snuffles. And what am I even supposed to do with the cat anyway?"

"Bury it?" Cisco asks with a shrug.

"I-I can't bury Snuffles without Iris," Barry says bewildered.  In the midst of his frantic thoughts, he acknowledges that it felt wrong burying Iris's cat without her being there to pay her respects.

"Well, it's either that or let the cat rot in your trunk while you muster up to courage to fess up."  Cisco looks at him critically. "And by the looks of it, you're not anywhere near ready for that."

Barry pulls a face as he thinks of Snuffles decaying in his trunk.  The thought makes him blanche. "I really have to bury her before the sun bakes her," he murmurs without thinking.

"Ew!  Dude, that is so gross!  Why would you say that?"

"Cisco, I'm all messed up about this, you'll have to excuse me," Barry snaps back irately.  He rubs his face roughly while letting out a groan. "I really do have to bury her."

The thought fills him with dread and he looks at Cisco pathetically, who had just placed a balloon on the nozzle of a helium tank.  The balloon slowly inflates as Cisco glances at him sympathetically. He does a double-take when he catches Barry's woeful eyes.

Cisco's eyes widen and he holds his hands up.  "Nope. You're on your own with this one. I am not cleaning up after your crime scene.  Not this time. I have a party to get ready for and a mourning best friend who's of no help."

Barry doesn't even register Cisco's words, his own eyes widening as he watches the balloon inflate to an alarming size.  "Cis—"

"Barry!  I am serious.  I just realized I made the dumb decision to host the party at our place.  Well, technically it's your fault for volunteering us in the first place."

"Cisco, you should—"

"And now we have sixteen people coming over in our cramped apartment and I mean, what do I know about party planning—"

POP!  Before Cisco can even finish his sentence, the balloon at the helium tank pops loudly, startling them both.  Cisco lets out a shriek and jumps away from the tank while Barry jerks in his seat even though he knew it was coming.

Cisco leans heavily against the mantel, pressing a hand to his heavy chest.  "Holy crap." He turns to Barry and jabs an angry finger at him. "Bury that cat ASAP and come back and help me with this party."

Barry looks at Cisco with wide eyes and nods vigorously.  "Ok, ok."

Two hours later Barry steps out of the elevator of his apartment with weary steps.  He had raced to the nearest pet cemetery, which oddly hadn't been as difficult to find as he thought.

When he trudges into the apartment, he freezes.

 

Iris is standing on a chair, her arms raised above her head as she tapes streamers from the crown molding.  She turns toward the door at the sound of his arrival and she beams her sunshine smile at him.

"Iris!  Hi!"

"Hey babe.  Where's the stuff?"

"Stuff?"

"Yeah, Cisco said you were running an errand."

Cisco gestures wildly behind Iris, eyes wide.  He mimes texting on a phone and Barry furrows his brows.  He pulls his phone out and sees three text messages from Cisco, all in caps, a missed call, and a voicemail.   _Dammit._

Cisco had been trying to warn him and in his haste and misery he completely neglected his phone.

"Oh shoot, right, um.  I left them in the car, I was um going to get it but then the downstairs neighbor, you know the old one?  Yeah, she needed some help with groceries and um, I just, I'll, but, I'll um…"

He thinks frantically of something to say before Cisco saves him.  "Don't worry about it, Barry, it's not an emergency. We can get it later."

Iris knits her brows, tilting her head to the side as she watches Barry.  She hops down from the chair and walks up to him as Barry tries to temper the thundering of his heart.  He can feel his neck heat up and he hopes like hell Iris can't see the flush on his cheeks.

And it would appear as though his hopes were in vain as Iris reaches up and cups one of his cheeks.  "Bar, you're all flushed." Her observant eyes flicker to his attire. "And a little dirty. You ok?"

Barry's cheeks burn hotter under Iris's touch and he self-consciously rubs the back of his head.  "Oh! Yeah, um, they didn't have the stuff at the usual place so I had run over to find them and then along the way…a-a dog started chasing me—"

"A _dog_ chased you?  While you were driving?"

"No! No no, I mean when I got out of the car to walk over to the store and then it um, it tackled me and so-so I might smell like dog," Barry rambles feebly while Cisco shakes his head in shame behind Iris.

Iris looks at him sympathetically and caresses his cheek.  "Oh honey. Why don't you freshen up and take a breather? Cisco and I can work on the streamers and then you can grab the rest of the decorations from your car."

"Uh sure…yeah, I'll freshen up and help you guys out," he says.

"Oh by the way, Mrs. Johnson from next door asked if we had seen Bertram.  I haven't, have you?"

Barry barely registers her words, trying in vain to appear nonchalant.  "Uh Bertram? No, I haven't," he says distractedly.

Iris shrugs and goes back to the streamers.

The entire time they spent the afternoon decorating their apartment until it was party-ready, Barry can barely focus as the guilt eats away at his stomach.  It isn't long until the guests arrive and after successfully surprising Caitlin, Barry drags his feet to the furthest chair away from the party with a glass of punch in his hands.  He looks pathetically into the unlit fireplace, figuring out how he's supposed to break the news to Iris.

And he most definitely had to tell Iris.  For a moment he had considered stopping by the nearest shelter and trying to find a similar looking cat.  But after taking one look at the screeching cats, Barry did an about-face and scurried out of there. There was no way he was going to be responsible for picking out Iris's companion without her present.  And he figured it would be suspicious if Barry came home with scratches all over him. He shudders just thinking about the deafening yowling. Dealing with Snuffles was hard enough, but an army of cats? He wasn't that brave.   

He sits by the fireplace, glumly contemplating his options when a small figure skips over to him.  He looks up and sees Joanie Horton standing in front of him with a pink and white summer dress with bumblee wings.  At seven, Joanie was very much experimenting on her style and it always amused Barry to see what she would come up with next.

When Barry first met Joe's girlfriend's daughter, she was wearing a Hulk costume with fairy wings with a all the confidence in the world.  It was possibly the cutest thing he had ever seen.

"She really likes superheroes and fairies," Cecile had mentioned with a shrug.  "So, I guess this is her way of emulating both."

But, it seems as though she ditched her superhero costumes for the occasion.  "Hi Barry!"

He pulls a smile.  "Hey Joanie. No fairy wings today?"

Her pigtails swing with the vigorous shake of her head.  "Nope. Today is bumble bee day." He waits for her to elaborate but she only looks at him with slightly furrowed brows, her head cocked to the side.

"Why do you look sad?" she asks.

Barry is momentarily perturbed that she can see right through him but sighs dramatically, shifting his whole body as he lets his shoulders droop low.  "I made an oopsie."

Joanie gasps, her eyes wide.  "What kind of oopsie?" she asks with intrigue.

"I did something bad and don't know how to tell my friend.  She might not forgive me."

Joanie looks thoughtful, tapping her chin with a hum.  "Is she your very best friend?"

"The bestest."

"Do you love her?"

"Yes."  Barry utters the word without hesitation.  While their relationship was still relatively new, there wasn't a doubt in his mind that he loved Iris.  "Very much."

Joanie beams up at him and he can't help return it with a small smile of his own.  She really was sweet. "And does she love you?"

Barry looks up across the room to where Iris stood between Caitlin and Linda.  She was listening to Caitlin speak and giggling. Her eyes shifts over to him as though aware of his gaze upon her.  She winks at him discreetly before turning back to the girls.

They hadn't quite gotten around to saying the words to each other, but Barry felt it sure in his heart.  And when he would catch Iris looking at him with her dark beautiful, soft eyes, he couldn't but feel warmed by it.

"I-I think so."

He looks back at Joanie who releases a high-pitched squeal, hopping up and down while clapping her hands.  She scrambles onto Barry's lap who hurries to balance her as she settles her knees painfully on his thighs.  He grimaces but holds her in place anyway as she clamps her hands on either side of his face, smushing his cheeks together.  She leans in close with a conspirational smile.

"Then it will all be ok.  True love always wins."

Barry feels doubtful even as his heart flutters as the though of Iris being his true love—somehow, he felt it to be true—but looking at Joanie's naïve and hopeful expression, he can't help but try to smile through smushed cheeks.

"But you must tell her the truth.  The truth will set you free," she says with a solemn nod and with an air that told Barry she was definitely quoting something.

Barry lets out a heavy sight through his puckered lips from where Joanie keeps his cheeks squished and nods.  "Ok, Joanie."

Satisfied, she releases him before jumping down from his lap.  Barry instinctively holds his hands at the ready to catch her but she lands on her feet.  With a hop, she claps her hands. "My work here is done."

And just like that she scurries away just as suddenly as she appeared, very much like the fairy she often liked to emulate.

Barry sits still in amazement before slumping back in the armchair.  He ponders about Joanie's words and the newfound revelation that he truly believed Iris was his true love.  They may not have been dating for all that much time, but he knew there wouldn't be anyone else after her.

Or so he hopes, he thinks glumly.  But for as much as he fears Iris's reaction, Joanie was right.  He couldn't carry on lying to Iris. She meant too much to him and he respected her enough to tell her the truth.

He looks over to her and once again, he feels the butterflies in his stomach as he always does in her presence and even through the impending doom, he feels that warmth that only comes with Iris.

He loves her and you do right by the people you love.  So with that thought in mind, he vows to tell her that night.

The party was a success and Barry has to admit that Cisco and Iris could probably team up for a party-planning company.  Considering how useless he was while he was having an internal, but not-so-subtle, breakdown they managed to get the place together really well.  Feeling guilty for his lack of help, he offers to clean up before heading back to Iris's place where he had planned to stay the night but he wonders if that was going to be an option after he revealed the truth to Iris.

Barry walks in after Iris into her apartment, his body weary from the day and from the weight on his chest.  He watches as Iris pulls off her jacket before plopping down onto the couch. She sighs with a smile and looks over to him.

"Why are you just standing there?"

He shakes himself out of his thoughts and pulls a smile for her even as his stomach turns uncomfortably.  He shrugs and sits beside her.

"Today was nice," Iris murmurs, leaning her head against the back of the couch.

"Mm-hmm."

Barry sits stiffly, his back ram-rod straight as his heart starts picking up its pace.  The closer he realizes he is to telling her, the more sick he feels and he needs to consciously remind himself to breath.

Iris turns to look at him strangely.  "What?" she asks with a bemused smile.

Barry whips his head around to look at her.  "Huh?"

"You just said 'breathe'."

His eyes widen as he begins to stammer.  "Oh! D-did I?" he squeaks. "Oh I-I don't know why I would say that, that's so-that's sooo weird."  He lets out a nervous chuckle and pulls on his collar to relieve his neck that was quickly heating up.  He was sure it was beat red at this point.

Oh god, he was going to die.  He was going to combust from the inside out, the guilt and anxiousness eating him up and then he would explode all over poor Iris who would not only have to deal with her cat's death, but his own…although if she knew what he had done, she probably would dance on his grave.  God, what was he going to do, what was he going to do?

Iris turns her body and faces him fully, her brows furrowing and he knows he's been caught.  "Barry, what is going on? You've been acting jumpy all day and twitching around. And you're flailing more than usual, which is saying something."

He's briefly distracted from his despair at that.  "I-I don't flail," he defends weakly. He definitely flailed.   

"Babe, you're constantly tripping over your own limbs and bumping into things."  She presses a gentle hand on his flaming cheek with an affectionate smile. "Don't get me wrong, it's so adorable and why I approached you to begin with.  It's one of the things I love about you."

His heart stutters at that and he faces her fully, looking at her in awe.  He swallows thickly. "Y-you love me?"

She beams at him, her hand sliding down to cup the back of his neck, fingers digging into the hair at his nape.  "Yeah, I thought it was kind of obvious."

He shakes his head with wide eyes, "Oh," he breathes softly.

She looks at him, her smile trembling for a brief moment that if he hadn't been intently looking at her--if he hadn't been already completely and utterly in tuned with her everything—he might have missed it.  But it was there.

"Barry, it's ok, you don't…" she begins softly.

"I love you," he blurts out, almost as though the words were desperate to escape his lips.  And he supposes in some way it was. He was certain he loved her from the moment he met her at Jitters all those months ago.  "I really, really love you, Iris."

She lets out a slow exhale.  "Well, that's pretty nice," she says with a happy smile, her eyes sparkling.

He returns her smile before it slowly wanes.  When you love someone, you tell them the truth.  "Um, Iris, there's something else that I have to tell you.  And…before I tell you, I need you to really understand how much I love you."

She furrows her brows, her hand at his nape sliding off.  "Barry, what's going on?"

He shifts in his seat, ducking his head.  He couldn't see the love die from her eyes once he told her the news.

"Um, this morning…when I was heading out, I…I ran over Snuffles."

There's a long stretch of silence and it was eating away at him.  He peeks up to look at her under his lashes. The sight that met him left his breath stuck in his throat.  She was looking at him wide-eyed and confused.

The long silence was creeping into his spine and he needed to her to say something, anything.

"What?" she finally breathes.

"I'm so sorry, Iris.  I'm _so_ sorry," he rushes to tell her.  "I promise it was an accident. I didn't see her and it just-it just…happened…"

Iris opens and closes her mouth as though trying to figure out what to say.  She shakes her head. "Where is she?"

"I buried her at the cemetery nearby."

She lets out a sharp exhale, looking away as her eyes filled with tears.

"Did she suffer?"

Barry winces, trying to find the words.  "Um, she…it was pretty instant."

"Oh!"  Iris presses her hands to her mouth.  Barry feels the knots in his stomach tightening at the sight of her tear-filled eyes.

"Iris, I'm so, _so_ sorry," he whispers.  He slides down from the couch and kneels in front of her, ready to beg her for forgiveness.  With careful hands he places them on either side of her thighs and rubs her skin soothingly.

He's tentative in his movements, his hands trembling as he braces for her to scream at him or begin sobbing.

"Iris—"

But that moment never comes.  Instead Barry is thrown to the side when a large fluffball lands on Iris's lap.  He hears the tinkling of a collar and then…

"Snuffles!"

Barry slowly gets up from his fetal position to see Snuffles wrapped up in Iris's arms.  "What?" he whispers to himself. He carefully moves closer as Snuffles turns in Iris's arms to face him.  He needs to make sure his eyes weren't deceiving him because he was pretty damn sure he buried a cat that looked just like this one only hours ago.

Iris looks up at him, beaming, her eyes shining for much happier reasons.

"Barry, she's alive!"

It would appear so, Barry thinks in a daze.  But he needed to make sure. His hand slowly reaches out to touch Snuffles' s collar, where her name was engraved into a heart-shaped locket.  He barely has a grasp of it before Snuffles screeches at him, making him jump away.

But the moment was enough because on the locket read, _Snuffles West,_ clear as day.

"Snuffles, enough.  It's Barry," Iris scolds.  She looks up to meet his stunned gaze with confusion of her own.  "I don't get it. I thought you said you ran her over."

"I-I thought I did."  His eyes flicker down to Snuffles who was now distracted by the sight of her toy mouse that was peaking out from under a chair.  She leaps out of Iris's arms and begins enthusiastically fussing with it.

Barry slowly looks up to Iris who's smiling brightly down at him and it begins to dawn on him.  He hadn't killed Snuffles after all. He hadn’t killed his relationship with Iris.

The weight of relief makes him giddy and he lets out a laugh as he jumps up from the floor and tackles Iris onto the couch.

"Barry!" Iris giggles as she wraps her arms around his neck.

"Oh my god, I thought-I thought I was going to lose you."  He leans down and kisses her hard. He gasps at the feel of her fingers raking through his hair as he pulls her tighter against him.

She pulls back gently and looks at him softly.  "You wouldn't have lost me either way."

"Are you sure?" he asks with a skeptical chuckle.  "There wasn't a moment you considered strangling me?"

She giggles and shakes her head.  "I would have gotten over it. But, luckily, we don't have to worry about that now," she says, tilting her head back to look at Snuffles who was still blissfully distracted.

"No, we don't," her murmurs, letting his hands slip under her blouse.  He slides his hands against her soft, smooth skin and captures her lips once more, reveling in this moment he has with her.  The relief and love ignites his body and he wants nothing more than to get lost in her.

His fingers make it to the back of her bra when she suddenly shoves him.  He loses his breath as he scrambles up and looks at Iris's wide eyes as she sits up with him.

"What-what is it?" he asks breathlessly.

"Barry," she says slowly, squeezing his arm.  "If you didn't run over Snuffles, then who did you run over?"

They both look at Snuffles who was looking at them as though pondering the same thing before a shout from the apartment next door interrupts the silence.

Barry and Iris look at each other in horror.

" _Bertram_!  Where are you?"

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for making it to the bottom! I hope you guys like this one :)


End file.
